Summary4 min read

Podcast Summary: Avoidants Fall EXCLUSIVELY For People Who Do THIS

Podcast: The Thais Gibson Podcast
Host: Thais Gibson
Date: August 1, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Thais Gibson dives deep into the psychological patterns behind why dismissive avoidants—people who often seem enigmatic, distant, or hard to read in relationships—are drawn to particular types of partners. Thais unpacks the concept of the "shadow" (rooted in Jungian psychology), discusses why some of us are unconsciously attracted to avoidant partners, and offers key steps to break these patterns for healthier, more fulfilling relationships. The focus is on self-understanding and self-empowerment, not people-pleasing or changing yourself to fit someone else's desires.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding Avoidants and Relationship Dynamics

Avoidants are mysterious: They often send mixed signals, making relationships confusing ([00:00]).
Main focus: Why avoidants are drawn “almost exclusively” to people who possess certain traits and how recognizing your own patterns can foster growth, healing, and better love.

2. Introduction to the Shadow (Jungian Psychology)

Shadow definition:
- "The shadow is the part of ourselves we try to deny or hide." – Thais ([02:31])
- Shadows manifest as traits we repress, often due to early environmental conditioning.
Example scenario:
- If you grew up with strict parents punishing assertiveness, you might repress assertiveness, see it as unsafe, and grow up to be people-pleasing ([03:30]).
- You may then unconsciously seek out assertive partners, thus projecting your repressed traits onto others ([04:25]).

3. How Childhood Impacts Current Attraction Patterns

If your needs weren’t met or you had inconsistent caregivers, you may “become avoidant to yourself”—neglect your own needs, echoing the treatment you received ([06:25]).
“When you find yourself in a pattern of chasing avoidant people, constantly trying to win them over, what this usually represents is that you are in an avoidant relationship to yourself.” ([06:35])

4. Changing the Dynamic: Self-Relationship and Trait Integration

Key insight:
- To attract avoidants—or healthier partners generally—focus on building a strong relationship to yourself:
  - Communicate your needs.
  - Set and uphold boundaries.
  - Assert yourself in relationships ([07:50]).
“The more you allow yourself to take up space, the more avoidant people will actually be drawn to you.” ([08:26])
This also attracts securely attached individuals.

5. The People-Pleasing Pitfall

“People will treat us the way that we treat ourselves... You will see this reflected back to you over and over again.” ([11:15])
If you’re always putting yourself last, others are likely to do the same.

6. Practical Tools for Trait Integration and Change

Trait integration through shadow work:
- Practice shadow work to change self-avoidant patterns (Thais offers a free course for a limited time—see episode description, [12:10]).
By addressing your inner patterns, you can break cycles of attraction to dismissive/avoidant people and become more empowered and attractive to all types of partners ([13:15]).
“We are so often attracted to people that represent the relationship we have to ourselves.” ([13:45])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Shadow Traits and Attraction:
- “Because when we have a shadow trait, when we have a part of ourselves that we think is wrong or bad, that's actually healthy, when we try to push it down, another aspect of the self is drawn to this trait in other people.” – Thais ([05:00])
On Self-Responsibility:
- “If you find that you are attracted to avoidant people, dismissive people, people who don't take care of your feelings and needs, chances are when you look inwards you will find the exact same patterns.” ([14:05])
On the Solution:
- “If you can understand this about yourself and do the work to actually change those patterns, really recondition them at a subconscious level, not only will you heal profoundly, but you will also empower yourself to become more attractive to other people...” ([14:58])
Empowerment Takeaway:
- “The more you allow yourself to take up space, the more avoidant people will actually be drawn to you. And more securely attached people for that matter.” ([08:26])

Key Timestamps

00:00 – Introduction to dismissive avoidants and episode purpose
02:31 – The concept of the shadow (Jung)
03:30 – Childhood example: strict parents, repression of assertiveness
06:25 – Developing self-avoidant patterns and repeated attraction to avoidants
07:50 – How to attract (and keep) avoidants: self-relationship and boundaries
08:26 – The importance of taking up space and being assertive
11:15 – People mirror how you treat yourself; end of people-pleasing
12:10 – Shadow work and trait integration course (practical offer)
13:15 – How to break the pattern at a subconscious level
13:45 – The unconscious mirroring of self-relationships in attractions

Summary Flow & Conclusion

The episode demystifies the avoidant attachment style and reveals the subconscious forces that draw us toward these relationships. Thais Gibson stresses that real change comes not from people-pleasing or altering yourself for someone else, but by recognizing and healing self-avoidant patterns. She offers personal anecdotes, practical advice (like shadow work), and encouragement for listeners to step into their needs and assertiveness. This transformation, she asserts, attracts not only avoidants but also secure, healthy partners, leading to true relational fulfillment.

Recommended for: Anyone who feels caught in a pattern of chasing emotionally unavailable partners or who wants to deepen self-understanding for better relationships.

For further resources, Thais recommends shadow work courses (free for a limited time) and encourages regular practice of self-assertion and boundary setting as foundational steps toward breaking unhealthy patterns.

Loading summary

Transcript1 lines

[00:00]
A
Have you ever wondered what is a dismissive avoidance thing in a relationship? Like, what are they actually looking for? They're often an enigma and they can be so confusing and give mixed messages. But obviously everybody has something that they're really interested in, something that draws them in. Well, in today's video, we're going to break that down. We are going to talk about how avoidance tend to fall for people almost exclusively who do these key things in a relationship. And some of these may really surprise you. Her name is Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. Thais Gibson. I hope I pronounce her name properly. Thaise Gibson. I am so excited for you to be here with me today. Thank you for joining us. Now, I want to start off by saying this is not a video about people pleasing or finding how to morph yourself into what's somebody else expects of you so that you can gain their approval. This instead is a video designed for somebody who feels like they are chasing an avoidant or even have a pattern of chasing more avoidant people in their lives. To deeply understand why this is happening and how you can actually change these patterns through something I talk about called the relationship shadow. By understanding this one thing in this very short video, it will help you grow, heal, and get the love that you really deserve. So if you've never heard of the term the shadow before, the shadow is a term originally coined by Carl Jung. And Carl Jung talks about how the shadow is the part of ourselves we try to deny or hide. And these really exist in the form most often of our traits. So what this looks like, because it may sound confusing at the beginning, is that whenever you repress traits within yourself, they're going to come out in hidden forms. Let me give you an example. Let's say you grew up in an environment where you had really strict parents. And a result of this, as a result of this strictness in your household, when you would try to assert yourself or say no to something that they demanded of you or set your own boundary in some way, that would be punishment. That would equate to punishment. You would literally find yourself not being allowed to set your own boundary or state your own needs. And in fact, trying to be assertive in any way would just cause you to be in a greater conflict with your parents where you would never get your way. So what happens? Well, as a result of this kind of dynamic, you would find yourself saying, okay, this assertiveness trait is not safe. It's not safe for me to be Assertive. It doesn't work this way. Now I'll actually share an example of a client I had who for the sake of this video, we'll call Julie. And what I found with Julie is that she exactly had this upbringing. In particular, she had one really strict parent. And she learned I cannot be assertive. It doesn't get my needs met, it just gets me in trouble and into a conflict. So she learned to be very people pleasing and really repressed this part of herself. As a result of this, she was very much attracted to people who were very assertive. She found it to be like a very empowering trait. She was always like, wow, look at that person, they can assert themselves so well. And she kept finding herself in a dynamic where she would be attracted to assertive people. Why does this happen? Because when we have a shadow trait, when we have a part of ourselves that we think is wrong or bad, that's actually healthy, when we try to push it down, another aspect of the self is drawn to this trait in other people. Okay, so this is part of our shadow. Now what's really interesting is that this can happen in a good way. You know, where we can be attracted to somebody assertive. Maybe that can help us build our own assertiveness over time if we spend a lot of time around them getting that behavior modeled to us. But it can also create problems instead. In other words, if you are a person who grew up in a household where you didn't get your needs met because you don't get your needs met growing up, you think you have to people please other people to get your needs met. You actually become avoidant to yourself. Maybe you grew up with people sort of being touch and go, being there and then not there, and that caused them to sort of be avoidant to you in a way. Guess what's going to happen? You are going to become avoidant in the relationship to yourself as a result of this. This becomes an aspect of your shadow and it becomes what you are attracted to in other people. So when you find yourself in a pattern of chasing avoidant people, constantly trying to win them over, what this usually represents is that you are in an avoidant relationship to yourself. And you're not realizing this because you were too busy, people pleasing all the time and you're putting yourself last as a result. And what actually helps you to have more avoidant people become more attracted to you and want to show up and invest in the relationship with you, is when you learn to build a relationship to yourself. You communicate what your needs are from others. You make sure that you set your boundaries in your relationships with others. You tell somebody if they're not meeting your needs in some sort of way. The more you allow yourself to take up space, the more avoidant people will actually be drawn to you. And more securely attached people for that matter. I just want to pop in here and let you know we are doing a seven day free trial to the All Access membership pass at pds which means you get access to literally everything inside of the school. And this includes the four live webinars I do with our students every single week. And on top of that, you get access to all of our different courses. We have over 55 different courses on relationships, communication, boundaries, Emotional Mastery, Guilt and shame, Learning your needs. So many different facets that are really important to master our lives and feel really good about our lives going forward. And last but not least, there's a daily community event. We have trained facilitators and coaches who are in there doing that work, showing up to support you on your journey every single day. Please join me on the other side. Come check it out, see if it's a fit for you. I'd love to see you there. Go ahead and sign up by clicking the link in the description box below. Because when we constantly people please people will treat us the way that we treat ourselves, right? You will see this reflected back to you over and over and over again. So what does this mean? Well, number one, we actually have to practice trait integration. We have to stop the dynamic of constantly being in an avoidant relationship to ourselves. We can do this through doing shadow work. I actually have a full course you can check out on this completely for free, just for a limited time. I will put the link down below. It's not free on an ongoing basis, but just for this seven day sort of chapter right here. As you're seeing this video and this course will help you to dig more deeply into understanding why you're attracted to the people that you're attracting attracted to and also how to break down these traits because we, we are so often attracted to people that represent the relationship we have to ourselves. If you find that you are attracted to avoidant people, dismissive people, people who don't take care of your feelings and needs, chances are when you look inwards you will find the exact same patterns. I don't take care of my feelings, my needs, I'm avoidant to myself, dismissive of my own boundaries, etc. These are the types of things that you'll be likely to find so when you can understand this about yourself and do the work to actually change those patterns, really recondition them at a subconscious level, not only will you heal profound, but you will also empower yourself to become more attractive to other people, particularly those people that you found yourself in this cycle with. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to subscribe, rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform, share it with friends and family who are on their journey of personal development and growth, and thank you for listening. Next week, we'll be back with more insights to guide you on your journey. And until then, keep practicing our tools and strategies to change your subconscious mind and apply some of the powerful learnings from this podcast so that you experience real life transformation.